A Tale of Two Sisters
by Riot Mouse
Summary: Post TDKR story sees Bane survive and seek out an old friend from his Shadow days. Very loosely based on DC canon. Nyssa Raatko / Nyssa al Ghul is a real character. Rated M to be on the safe side. Please review, this is my first piece of fan fiction!


**A Tale of Two Sisters**

By Riot Mouse

_**Disclaimer: I, of course, assume no rights to any of the characters portrayed in this story – nor do I claim to follow the canon. I simply write out of love for the Dark Knight Trilogy. Many thanks to Christopher Nolan and all at DC Comics, particularly Greg Rucka and Klaus Janson who created the character Nyssa Raatko. I apologise for taking such liberties with her! **_

He had come for her, of that she was sure.

Before her eyes adjusted to the gloom, before his familiar shape loomed into her field of perception, before she even sensed the presence that had awoken her from her sleep, she knew it was him. There he stood, feet braced in that easy boxer's stance. Just as she remembered him. His calloused hands buried in the deep shearling collar of his coat. She sat up slowly, swinging her legs over the side of the prison crib one after the other. In the dark of the cell, her pallor shone. Straightening out the kinks in her body from a night's heavy slumber, she threw back her head and raked her fingers through a mid-length mane of dirty blonde hair.

"Nyssa". His exclamation cut through the eerie silence of her cell. Bane took the sight of her in as she rose to stand before him - a woman now, in place of the 18 year old girl he had once known. She had filled out, of course, and her posture no longer displayed the tone and tension that had once made her such a delightfully formidable opponent in combat. It was clear to him; she was out of shape and practice. Despite this, Bane noted (ever the tactician) she held her curves with a subtle and balanced poise that was undeniably reminiscent of a magnificent athleticism. And the economy of her movements did not in any way detract from their accuracy or authority. The confident shine of youth had not been rubbed away entirely, merely burnished by experience to the dull and deadly glow of one who has both won and lost their fair share of fights and, as a consequence, knows their own mortality on an intimate level. Yes, he considered, she was perhaps more vulnerable, yet more deadly now than ever. He reacquainted himself with the shadows etched into her soft skin with ink; a fable of flesh that could be read - some chapters old, some chapters new to him - stretching up her legs and disappearing into the rough old prison shirt. Slowly, he counted each button, up to that sharp chin and strong jaw line that she had shared with her sister. "Nyssa al-Ghul", he repeated, slowly.

"Nyssa Raatko, as my mother named me… Nyssa al-Ghul, as my father preferred I be known… 'Nyssa, my beloved', as I once was to you". She took her turn to look him up and down and she appraised him with the same quick curiosity that she had when they had first sparred together years before as members of The League of Shadows. "Just for the one night, before you both left me."

She heard him suck a long, hard lungful of that precious medicated air that sustained him. The great man's eyes swam with emotion and confusion – still he would not raise his head to fully meet her gaze. "And you were. But Talia is my Queen, Nyssa. From the day that I picked that child up out of the filth, my life was forfeit to hers. You knew that - we all did." He paced the cell until he towered over her. "You appeal to a weaker aspect of my nature. We each have our paths to follow, and, beloved, you caused me to deviate."

"So, where is she now, Ferdinand?" she reverted to her pet name for him, a secret they had once shared and laughed over: Ferdinand, the little Spanish bull who would not fight. But fight he did, lashing out against the unbearable question. His hand was wrapped around her throat. Bringing her face close to his own, he finally gave her his eyes as if seeking to transmit the terrible truth by telepathy. Her grey eyes narrowed and tears welled behind their thick rims of kohl. In that moment he knew she shared the torment that surged through him. He breathed deeply and squeezed as she conducted his pain, like electricity. They both smarted with the sting of it. Nyssa felt the cool, damp cell wall behind her back as she arched up onto her tiptoes. Her eyes, Bane noticed, were no longer the quicksilver of her youth but a darker shade like gunmetal, or a gathering storm at sea. She gasped and glanced away, quickly, and before he could interpret the decisive shift of her expression, she had wrenched the hair pin from her head and had it trained barely a centimetre from his eye. Her other arm curved around his neck and she gripped the thick strap that held his mask in place. He felt her chest, soft against his own as she braced her upper body. Instinctively he shifted against her and felt a betrayal within Nyssa's own body that followed suit, matching him thigh betwixt thigh, hip against hip.

The pair stood at impasse for a moment, before Bane released her. She slipped from his grasp and across the small room. She had moved quickly to put a distance between their bodies, he noted, but he felt her against him still. It was the most energised that he had felt since Talia had gone.

She dried her tears with the cuff of the shirt, and although she kept her face turned from him he could tell she kept him safely within her peripheral vision. She twisted the shaggy mess of her hair up into a knot and stuck it through with the pin. A dull ache returned as he recalled the million-and-one times Talia had done so, and marvelled that her younger sister could take the same gesture so meaningless, so utilitarian in its nature and infuse it with a sensuality that both aroused and infuriated him.

"You are no great beauty. What is this trickery that makes me burn for you so." The words rumbled from behind his mask.

Was it shock, despair or another far more ungovernable emotion that dictated the brutal honesty of her reply? "You love that I am her, but also that I am not her – that is what you always craved. Even when we were all together, I often wondered what it was that we daughters of al-Ghul shared, in our bodies, minds and souls; in our tangled DNA that both attracted and repelled you from me." Holding her gaze, Bane stepped around her in a languid motion. "So you think it is a matter of genetics?" He lowered his muscular frame on to the crib and like a Matador to his bull, she came with him. She leant into a whisper at once conspiratorial and predatory in its intimacy. "No, I think it's more like voodoo."


End file.
